Month: June 2017

The unexpected is happening. In the wake of the late surge in support for Labour that wiped out Theresa May’s majority (and hit the Liberal Democrat vote), a new poll on 11 June showed Labour six points ahead of the Tories. Labour were also reporting 15,000 new members in the first three days after the 2017 General Election.

On the doorsteps on polling day, and with friends since, the sense is that Labour under Corbyn have caught people’s imaginations. What does this imply for Liberal Democrats?

My sense is that this is a problem because people’s imaginations have been caught by something unrealistic. If we now had a majority Labour government, disappointment would be around the corner, but for now, hopes are roused. There’s a parallel with Brexit being seen as a bright new future.

A sharp illustration is our respective economic policies. The Institute of Fiscal Studies concluded that our manifesto was the only one properly costed and also the most likely to deliver for low income people. If 9 June had seen Vince Cable become Chancellor of the Exchequer, that would have boded better for the economy than either of the other choices. Instead a costly cocktail of promises from Labour has fired people’s imaginations.

The huge number of new members of the Liberal Democrats are making me think differently about the familiar problem of balancing resources between target and non-target seats, and the possibility of attracting support in a way that parallels En Marche in France.

Emmanuel Macron

For a long time targetting has been a difficult decision for Liberal Democrats. The electoral system means that, if we lean too far one way, we spread ourselves too thinly and are even more badly under-represented in parliament. If we lean too far the other way, we create Liberal Democrat “holes” where there is more-or-less little for people to join, which makes it really hard for that situation to change.

But one of the many unusual things about this General Election campaign is that it is taking place in a period of rapid growth while our membership is growing rapidly. In June 2017 I was the parliamentary candidate in a constituency where membership is up 400% since the 2015 General Election and 250% since the EU referendum.